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I do have the webpage link and screenshots of the incident (in Chinese), but I don't want to encourage readers to "verify" the situation, which would lead to more scrutiny and harm to everyone involved. My focus in writing this piece is to vent my own emotions. I know what's true for me, and that's enough. If you think I'm lying, then just treat this as a "fictional story."
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The situation was that I joined a writing challenge. Everyone posted one article daily, leading to many interactions. One participant shared about a bookstore in mainland China. The article praised the bookstore’s architectural design, mentioning some international design awards it had won, describing how big, beautiful, and luxurious it was—implying that mainlanders are affluent and cultured.
In the article, the author wrote (Notice! Everything happened in Chinese originally, my translation to English may lose some of the essence):10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL1YLPQiOFG
"The hiring process is quite strict. They mainly hire women, and they must be under 35 with high education levels. Older individuals and those with lower education are not considered."
After reading the entire thousand-word article, I simply left a brief comment:10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM8YyZNGzjP
"The age and gender discrimination in hiring is chilling…"
The author replied:
"Large, legitimate enterprises in mainland China, like state-owned companies, all hire like this. This isn't discrimination. They just prefer younger employees. Do you guys (refering to Taiwaness) expect flight attendants to be 50-year-old grannies? Aunties?
Sorting books and cleaning can be done by women. Higher-level positions are reserved for men, but they also must be under 35.
It’s not just bookstores—front desk staff at banks, telecom companies, and mobile service providers are all young, attractive, highly educated women. All state-owned enterprises employ are civil servants. Of course, there are some men in customer service roles, but they are relatively few.
Even models have to be attractive. Should we say it’s discrimination against people who are ugly or old? What kind of logic is that?"
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At that moment, I never expected such an extreme reaction. I felt I had merely made an obvious, fair observation.
Think about it—if a store insists on hiring mostly women under 35, regardless of their education level, then an employee in that store would know from day one that they can never stay in this store to grow old. In this bookstore, what’s truly being "valued" isn’t education or skills, but the prime years of youth and biological gender. Honestly, that’s not much different from prostitution. If I worked there, would I have any motivation to dedicate myself to the store's long-term success?
No way. I’d slack off whenever possible, dodge responsibilities, and constantly look for an exit. Who would genuinely care about managing a store that doesn’t even see them as a person?
Moreover, the author’s comment revealed that "higher-level positions" were still reserved for men. As a woman, that means there’s no motivation to climb higher. Even if I had the highest qualifications or insightful ideas to improve the bookstore, I wouldn’t bother sharing them. And if every employee thought this way, wouldn’t the company’s workplace culture be utterly toxic?
Besides, if a highly educated woman is only allowed to do basic cleaning and shelf organizing in a bookstore, wouldn't that get mind-numbingly boring over time, regardless of gender? Especially for young people? Who could stay passionate about such brainless work? Don’t bookstore employees need to engage with customers? Doesn’t communication require cultural literacy? Even if qualifications were the same, would a young woman necessarily perform better than an older man?
The author seemed to believe that only "educated men under 35" were worthy of higher positions in a bookstore. But judging by his writing, I couldn't tell how high his own education level was. (Oh right, I forgot—over mainland China, the level of being educated equals the level of being brainwashed by the only party of the central government. It's not the same as the education we receive outside the Great China Firewall.) If a company truly followed his logic in hiring, how would that be any different from buying livestock at a market?
"I want a pig—young, female, alive, with all its limbs intact."
I don’t understand how some people can have such little empathy, to treat this hiring practice as completely normal, even using it to boast about a bookstore’s "high standards."
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My Thoughts:
No matter the industry, job responsibilities constantly evolve, and unexpected situations always arise. No workplace can function with rigidly divided roles forever. If lower-ranging employees don’t care about long-term company growth, they’ll just push responsibilities onto each other instead of finding standardized solutions together.
If senior management designs inefficient processes that don’t work in real life, who would dare report issues and suggest improvements—knowing that failure would be blamed on their incompetence, and speaking up might offend their (male) superiors?
In the end, the most responsible lowest-ranking employees will be bullied into taking on the "gray area" tasks, bearing all the risks without the corresponding pay. Meanwhile, for other colleagues to survive in this cruel company, they will always stay silent, prioritizing their own job stability over fairness.
If a company reaches a point where every employee wants to leave but can’t, then the work atmosphere and team relationships will be a complete disaster.
But, to be fair, I’ve never worked in mainland China or in any bookstore. My assumptions are based on my own past work experiences.
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When I first entered the workforce, the unwritten rules were similar.
One former boss of mine even bragged about how, during his business trips to mainland China, he had plenty of chances to cheat on his wife and "play with women." He was taken to brothels filled with young girls by his business partner. As he proudly told us about how he "resisted temptation," the only people in the office listening to him were me (in my early 20s) and an even younger female colleague. We were just quietly typing away, doing secretarial work, forced to smile and play along. Looking back, it still makes me nauseous.
Maybe these negative experiences have made me overly pessimistic, always imagining the worst, even others find irrelevant and "normal".
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Moreover, the author’s response escalated from "age and gender" to "regional superiority." Suddenly, this was no longer just about bookstore hiring—it became about belittling "our" flight attendants while glorifying "their" state-owned enterprises.
The way he brought up models, accusing me of having "flawed logic" and "discriminatory thinking." If that’s not a personal attack, what is? All I did was make one little comment about a bookstore, and he escalated it into a nationalist argument?
Did he really think my little comment was an intentional attack on his country’s image or a challenge to his personal dignity and intelligence?
I replied:
"@author, https://vip.104.com.tw/preLogin/recruiterForum/post/2477
In Taiwan, it’s illegal for employers to discriminate based on gender or age.
Imagine you were born unattractive, but you have extensive knowledge of book classification, graduated with top scores in Library Science, have customer service industry experience, and are physically capable of handling the job.
But you get rejected, while someone with no qualifications or experience gets hired just because 'she' is young and pretty.
Would you accept that?
Besides, a model's job is to look atractive, but is that what a bookstore clerk does now? Does that store sell people or books?
At this point, I felt uneasy and reported the situation to the challenge moderator.
The moderator replied with:
"Good morning… (Omitting some polite greeting to both of us)
I believe both of you should remain calm and rational.
Cross-strait cultures are different, so we must uphold mutual respect.
Every issue has its pros and cons.
Staying objective prevents us from being swayed.
I hope we can all continue growing together. (●°u°●)"
The author then responded cheerfully to the moderator with:
"Okay! (cute emojis)"
At that point, I decided to stay silent and respect the moderator’s wishes.
Privately, I told the moderator I wouldn’t engage with the author anymore. But I also decided to leave the challenge. I still felt hostile, disgusted and unsafe in that environment.
And so, Goodbye. The "soft, sweet, passive and naive" version of me in this writing challenge.
I found a completely unrelated reason to say goodbye to the people I met in this writing challenge, saying that I was tired and busy with work, and so on. By the time I posted this, this "minor incident" had already passed for a long time, long enough that I thought no one would notice anymore. What's more, I had already set this post in Chinese version to be paid, and this "location" is far from that writing challenge. 10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYhSCcEVFWx
What's more, the Chinese version of this article's title was changed from a more obvious "Encountering Little Pink in a Writing Challenge" to a more ambiguous transitive verb that sounds similar to "insult China". So, I don't think anyone would click on this article with a specific reason to find out why I have dropped that writing challenge in the middle, right?
So, I believe I can talk about it now without causing more harm to anyone.
Let me repeat: if you happen to know who or which writing challenge I am referring to, please stop causing further harm. Don’t guess who it is, and don’t engage in unnecessary behaviours. I will not respond to this matter anymore. If you take any personal actions after reading this, it has nothing to do with me.
Remember "This story is purely fictional!" I am not responsible for any possible consequences related to this matter, nor do I feel sorry for them.
In my heart, I admit, I am a hypersensitive fragile woman. The second when I think of the impulse to destroy the friendly atmosphere of that writing challenge, I distanced myself from it. The way I handled this is because something similar happened when I participated in another writing challenge before.
Warning: I was more childish back then, than I am now:
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At that time, I foolishly wrote a post according to the moderator's (not the moderator of this incident, let's call her Moderator B) request and tagged Moderator B, saying I wanted to participate in a certain group of the challenge as required.
But Moderator B sarcastically mocked me in the comments, asking why I didn't look at what I was writing. From formatting to content, I was criticized harshly.
At that time, I was so angry that I responded sentence by sentence, arguing that others wrote like this too, so why couldn't I write like that? I was so upset that I made mistakes and typos, constantly editing my comments.
She replied again, and I pointed out her logic mistakes, asking if those were not synonyms, implying she indirectly admitted I was right... something like that along those lines.
And then she attacked my character, and I attacked hers...
In the end, Moderator B declared on the homepage of the writing challenge that both I and another participant were banned from the challenge because she was "maliciously attacked."
So, I reached out to that other participant and invited her to get into this fight together.
The other participant had posted earlier than me.
I had already seen the conflict between Moderator B and her in the comment section, and only after seeing that did I write my post based on the "improvement framework" that came out of that conflict.
At that time, even with someone's example in front of me, I didn’t realize how difficult Moderator B was to deal with and dare to join her challenge. Looking back, I realize I was really stupid.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡz6SkS7SmXi
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Returning to the story, after I calmed down a bit, I left a comment under our augment, something along the lines of "Did I, a complete stranger to you, really spend hours writing a few hundred words with a beginning, middle, and end, with setting and character psychology in a story, just come to provoke you in the first place?"
In my heart, I was thinking:
She might not like my work, but publicly insulting and mocking someone who came to participate with genuine enthusiasm—how low is her character? I’m not leaving this challenge because I want to see who’s foolish enough to post after me.
Moderator B replied, continuously saying something sarcastic like, "Oh, what a wonderful great writer you are, this challenge is just too small for you to join."
As for the other participant, she took care of my feelings and privately shared with me her even worse experience in a writing challenge, advising me: "That writing challenge is still Moderator B's. It’s her challenge."
She convinced me with reason and emotion. After a while, I deleted my work from that challenge.
I withdrew from the challenge and never checked its developments again.
A few days later, I submitted the same piece of work to another writing challenge. Strangely, after the deadline passed, the results were not announced for a long time. Moreover, Moderator C even told me that she thought I had written very well and encouraged me to submit the work to bigger competitions.
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That incident happened so long ago that the details are now blurry in my memory. But I clearly remember my feelings at that time: I knew I had been feared and disliked.
After that incident, I stayed away from the writing challenge for a long time. I returned this time because I really liked the atmosphere here. Those challenges introduced me to many people and sparked a lot of new ideas and creative inspiration. I had been having fun and even got a little carried away, checking my phone all the time. In my confused life, I had found a kind of virtual "sense of belonging" and "purpose" in that daily writing challenge before that little pink came and ruined it all.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAGoeBc7tNB
So, That's why I used an excuse to leave that writing challenge this time, I did feel a little regretful at first, thinking maybe I had overreacted. But then that little pink disgusted me again and made me decide not to look back anymore.
Here’s what happened next:
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Just after he had promised Moderator B "mutual respect" with a cute "Okay,", he tagged me again:
"Generally, companies in China don’t care about appearance; they focus on age and education. Older people with education and work experience are preferred. But if you’re young and have no education, you can only work in factories, doing manual labor, delivering food, or working as a delivery person, waiter, etc... But if you want to work in a big company as a high-level manager, it’s a bit difficult. They want education. Only youth isn’t enough unless you’re the son of a shareholder or a relative of the CEO.
In China, good jobs with a monthly income of around 100,000 yuan offer good benefits and short working hours. But there are two things you need to fight for: education and connections. If your educational background isn’t enough, you can only rely on connections. It’s like this: If your aunt is Tsai Ing-wen, even if you didn’t finish elementary school, you can still rise to the top.
In China, there’s a saying: 'Those with connections get picked up, while those without are beaten by monkeys.'"
If someone is older, lacks background, has no education, and their children are mediocre, this person can only do the lowest-tier jobs: cleaner, street sweeper, street vendor, or security guard. If they have the ability, they might be able to work as a nanny, where the pay is a bit higher. They can work as a caregiver. If they have a pension, life might be a bit easier. They can still work in factories, but after 45, it becomes difficult to get in, and even other industries are unwilling to hire too. Getting hired is just a matter of luck.
There’s a rumor that they don’t want to hire older people because... older people are prone to illnesses, like heart disease and high blood pressure. If they get sick, it costs the company money. Young people are strong and less likely to fall ill, so companies prefer hiring younger people."
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I don’t know how everyone feels after reading this, but to me, it sounds very harsh.
What has this person misunderstood? I didn’t ask him for a job market guide for China, did I? Why did he feel the need to condescendingly send me such things? I have no interest in looking for a job in China, nor do I care about the job market there.
Furthermore, the situation in his country isn’t the universal standard. His “personal thoughts” don’t become more universal or correct just because “officials in his country do it this way”! He doesn’t need to “civilize” me, a lowly civilized barbarian!
Uh, in case everyone doesn’t understand, and hasn’t followed my “backward” logic, let’s review the context of the situation, from start to finish.
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First, because I criticized the recruitment standards of “that bookstore,” he brought up “my nationality and logic.” I ignored his insults and told him that our country doesn’t treat people like livestock. Our legislation protects us, and I asked him to put himself in other's shoes before speaking out his thoughts.
Secondly, I brought the focus back to the “recruitment criteria.” Isn’t it supposed to be based on who is most qualified for the “job duties” themselves? I asked him to reconsider from that perspective.
Finally, even though he had promised "mutual respect" to our moderator, let's see what was the main point of his words.
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- He excluded “appearance” as a factor.
This element was something he himself brought up first (flight attendants and models). I asked him to put himself in the shoes of someone born unattractive, and when he couldn’t come up with a response, he withdrew it.
- He then brought up the “connections/background” element. (In Chinese, this word is more referred to what family you are born into.)
But, while he clearly mentioned that it was something happening in mainland China, so why did he use Taiwan’s former president Tsai Ing-wen as an example?
I don’t remember Tsai Ing-wen being involved in any nepotism scandals. Her relatives didn’t gain any benefits because of her position. And if you’re talking about your country’s situation, please use examples of your own national leaders or high-ranking officials. Don’t smear another country without reason, okay?
Or, as I did before, provide a link and show me any evidence of corruption, nepotism, or bribery in your country, and I’ll surely love to take a look.
- He then categorized people who lack these elements in China into certain outcomes:
Young: Work in factories, construction, delivery, or as a waiter etc.
Young + good education/background: Work as a high-level executive in big companies.
None of the above: Lowest-tier jobs: cleaners, street sweepers, street vendors, security guards etc.
None of the above + Ability: Nannies, caregivers, factory workers.
Over age 45 + Bad luck: Because of the higher chance of illness and fraud suspicion, they won’t have any opportunity for any jobs.
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So, with these three points combined, what kind of assumption is he making about why I “need to know all this”? If he’s saying all this to calm me down, telling me to accept the reality, then he’s truly being so considerate.
When I gave him the hypothetical of “being ugly + highly educated + experienced, yet having his job taken by a younger, less educated, less experienced woman,” it was to urge him to have some empathy. I didn’t say I was “old,” “lacking background,” “poorly educated,” “unable to find a job,” or “jealous of Chinese who have a job.” That wasn’t my point. My point was to respond to him on a more “universal moral” level.
Now, here’s my cry. I know he can’t hear it, but please allow me to curse a bit as if "here" is an open street and I am talking to him face to face:
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Your self-centeredness is overwhelming! Please stop assuming my motives, okay?
By twisting things and trying to act all “sweet and thoughtful,” you’re only showing how low the level of your understanding is, okay?
Not everyone who challenges your “prejudice” is looking down on your country!
You’re not the spokesperson for your country!
I’m also pretty sure that bookstore isn’t yours, and all the “realities” you’ve shared are just things you’ve made up in your head!
Go read more books! Don’t dodge the argument when you can’t defend yourself and try to divert the topic, turning it into an attack on other countries!
Stop with the paranoia! Stop using your country as a shield, OK?
I’m criticizing you, not because you’re from mainland China! It’s because you’re brainless! Uncultured! Your skewed views keep embarrassing your country!
And I just noticed, in your bitchy response to me, you finally removed the “gender” element you cared so much about at the beginning!
Congratulations! It seems like my words got through to your brain a little bit after all!
Do you know? Even though I have no rich family background, my freedom of speech is no less than anyone else’s!
Please don’t wrap up your tasteless, breaking promises behaviour with a disgusting sweet tone (which is more obvious in Chinese), trying to make it sound like “you didn’t mean to offence” or “you were just being kind,” so you can use your high-level personal attacks without notice, okay?
I won’t argue with you or list examples of people in your country who’ve succeeded purely based on “personal abilities” to counter your points, or teach you how to think, because:
- You didn’t pay me!
- I’m not obligated to promote your country!
- I didn’t come to this challenge to waste my time on this nonsense!
Maybe we Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan folks are having a good time communicating and socializing in Traditional, not simplified, Chinese because our logic and cultural literacy, even if low, are still better than your level!
Meeting someone like you, who wants to forcibly “blend in” and promote national pride while intimidating strangers, really opened my eyes! I used to think that the news about other countries being attacked by some irrational “little pinks” was just for show. Never have I imagined I’d meet one so shameless in real life! Wow!
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Phew~ Anyway, I’ve finished my rant, and damn, that felt good.
All in all, I did go back to check on that writing challenge afterward. I kept chatting under the posts of people I had grown familiar with, leaving comments and having funny chats, yet slowly faded out. Honestly, I did feel a little regretful. Especially when I saw those people I used to be close with starting to interact more with him—liking, commenting, and engaging with his other posts...
It’s a complicated feeling.
Because before this post (both Chinese and English versions), I hadn’t mentioned this incident to anyone on this Platform except for the moderator. It’s unlikely anyone would scroll down to some small, random comment section in an old post to notice that we fought, or more accurately, that I was attacked so severely unilaterally.
It’s not like I’m here to form some kind of clique. I don’t have the childish, elementary-school mindset of “If I’m here, he shouldn’t be.” If other people still think his posts—where he brags about China from a new and different angle every day—are fabulous, if they don’t notice anything off about his character, if they still think he’s patient, knowledgeable, entertaining, educational, tirelessly spreading information and boosting his country’s glory with his words is—“Wow, so talented!”
…Then fine, as long as they enjoy it. I don’t need anyone to know that this enjoyment is built on my pain.
Yeah, I admit it—I feel jealous, envious, and bitter for his carefree time spent with my friends. So what?
After all, looking at it from another perspective, I was the one who carelessly left a comment about the alleged hiring criteria of that bookstore, giving him an opening to jump in. I have no way to prove that I never intended to offend his country, intelligence, or character in the first place. And I don’t think my passing remark, as someone just casually scrolling by, is something I need to apologize for.
From my point of view, his overwhelming sense of humiliation—turning a minor comment into a major issue—comes from his own fragile (race?national? political? party?) pride. Before this whole thing, I didn’t even notice he was from China!
As someone who lives from outside the Great China Firewall, how would I have known that he carried such an honourable, noble, devoted, and loyal heart—one that is constantly concerned with his country’s image, dedicated to enlightening the world from the point of view of his own country, and seeing the unification of universal values as his divine mission by birth?
All I did was make a casual remark about an Alleged hiring requirement at an Alleged bookstore—something he highly possibly made up. And just because my tone wasn’t filled with reverence and admiration, I suddenly deserved to be lectured, humiliated, in his full-on "patriotic mode" and start sweeping insults about my motive, nationality, logic, age, education, gender, and background??
Wow. The imagination on this guy! Incredible! What a talent! Just a few exchanges with him, and I can already tell—this guy is on a whole different level! Look at his technique: even if I say he’s being a "green tea" (A covertly aggressive person in Chinese), others might not even understand what I mean. People might just think, “Oh, he didn’t mean it that way. Maybe you’re just overthinking it?”
And what if—just what if—he actually put in the effort to write a long, detailed educational, informative response, sincerely believing he was doing a good deed to me, in return for me trying to open his eyes, slapped him with reality, taught him life lessons, and show him what the world outside the great Chinese firewall and real logic actually look like?
I can even imagine his reaction if he saw this post one day, though I doubt if he can read English, he may say something like:
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"I... I just really think my country’s system is the most normal, advanced, and civilized! Ahhh, you overseas savages, why won’t you listen to my kindness? Boohoo~ Your knowledge, character, logic, and background are all so terrible! Waaah~ You Taiwanese people are all poor, unrefined, and rude! Waaah~ I’m crying now~"
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And my only response to him would be:
Fuck off！ (with nice a middle finger.)
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